


A Paper Trail

by sleepyxcoffee



Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TV 2003), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types
Genre: BAMF Michelangelo (TMNT), Gen, Hurt Leonardo (TMNT), Kidnapping, Murder Mystery, Whumptober 2019, Whumptober 2020, no beta we die like the shredder should
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2020-10-10
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:48:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26935390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sleepyxcoffee/pseuds/sleepyxcoffee
Summary: Three days after Master Splinter went missing, so did Leo.Written for Whumptober Day 10: Trail of Blood
Relationships: Donatello & Leonardo & Michelangelo & Raphael (TMNT), Donatello & Leonardo (TMNT), Donatello & Michelangelo (TMNT), Leonardo & Splinter (TMNT)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 48
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	A Paper Trail

**Author's Note:**

> it's 2:30 and i wrote this in a three hour frenzy.
> 
> ...i need to sleep.
> 
> i haven't posted any fanfiction since i was 12 (i'm 18 now) and i haven't completed anything in even longer. can't believe this is my first foray back into the wonderful world of fic writing...
> 
> warnings for blood and violence, a short torture scene, mentions of racism, brief discussion on police... not brutality but purposeful ignorance (details in endnotes)

Three days after Master Splinter went missing, so did Leo.

Under Donnie and Mikey’s mutual pestering, Raph finally caved and agreed to ask Karai. “It’s not like  _ she’d _ be any help,” Raph had argued. “For all we know, she’s the one who took him!”

“We have a truce,” Donnie had pointed out. In the background, Mikey bounced around the Lair.

“Yeah, dude,” Mikey added, hanging upside down from a sewer pipe dusting cobwebs. Ever since Master Splinter went missing, he had been too antsy to stand still, and it had only gotten worse since Leo disappeared.

In the end, it had taken two hours of back-and-forth, during which Donnie hacked into what was just about every security camera in New York whilst Mikey questioned their allies and Raph looked around topside. All three of them reached dead ends. Donnie found nothing on the cameras. Mikey couldn’t find a single friend who knew anything or could help. Raph couldn’t find anything either, so he reluctantly agreed that Karai was beginning to look like their one last opportunity.

Of course, Karai claimed to know nothing. Raph called bullshit - repeatedly - as Donnie panicked and Mikey frantically tried to defuse tensions.

“You asked me about your sensei two days ago, and I knew nothing then,” Karai snarled. “Now, I  _ still _ know nothing. I promised you that I would tell you if I learnt anything, and I have not!” She seemed genuinely offended at the slight to her honour. Donnie continued to pace, quizzing her over and over again. Raph stood to the side, glaring and growling. Mikey eventually convinced his brothers to leave with one last apology to Karai.

“Wait,” she called as the turtles left, “I hope you find him.”

Perched on the window sill, Mikey watched Donnie fiddle with his machines and Raph spin his sais, glaring at a chimney like it had personally offended him. “I hope so too,” Mikey said grimly, then leapt out the window and followed his brothers back home.

Back home, Raph eviscerated a punching bag. Mikey sliced up leeks, and Donnie returned to digging up every last scrap of information available on every computer in New York. Mikey personally thought there was no reason to weaken themselves through hunger in their panic, especially if they had to get up and fight at a moment’s notice. It unnerved him - Donnie was always calm, and while Raph was always a firecracker, he was usually a firecracker pointed in a certain direction rather than stewing and ready to blow up everything in a ten mile radius.

Mikey tried not to show it. Without Leo and Master Splinter, somebody had to stay calm. Clearly, that turtle wasn’t going to be Raph  _ or _ Donnie. “I’m headin’ topside,” Raph grunted as Mikey chucked butter in a wok. “Need a breath a’ fresh air.”

“Stay safe,” Mikey said. Donnie ignored them both and continued his frenzied typing. Raph nodded gruffly and stormed out of the Lair. Mikey added the leeks and covered the wok, then peeled the potatoes and started chopping. The Lair was silent apart from Donnie’s typing and the rhythmic thumping of Mikey’s knife.

The silence was broken when Donnie hurled his coffee mug across the room. It smashed cacophonously against a wall. Ceramic shattered into shards and cold coffee spilled in a sad puddle across the floor. Mikey’s knife slipped, and he nearly cut his hand open. “Dude?”

Donnie started screaming. Mikey dropped the knife and ran over to his brother, his already cold blood suddenly running colder. “Don! Donnie, talk to me, what’s up bro?”

“ _ Where are they? _ ” Donnie snarled, slamming a fist against his desk. “I - Mikey, there’s  _ nothing  _ \- not on any of the camera feeds - no notes, no records - what do I do -”

Mikey felt panic well up inside him. He wasn’t Leo. He wasn’t Master Splinter. He didn’t know what to do. He cast his mind back to when Leo was little, and had ended up stuck on top of a training post and started crying, too afraid to get himself back down. What had Splinter done? What had he done?

“Okay, uh -”  _ Breathe, my son _ , Master Splinter had said. “Deep breaths, Don.”  _ One step at a time. _ “We’ll find something.”  _ You can do this. _ “I believe in you.”

Donnie buried his hand in his heads and let out another ragged half-scream, half-sob. Thinking quickly, Mikey sprinted upstairs, into Leo’s room. Leo was a sentimental little shit. Leo kept things. Leo still had the badly-made quilt Mikey made years ago one Christmas when it was cold out, and four baby turtles spent half the winter huddled under it beneath a heat lamp Master Splinter rigged. They had outgrown it, obviously, but it was still big enough for one teenaged turtle.

Mikey vaulted over the railing of the mezzanine and rolled onto the ground floor, quilt clutched in one hand. He threw the ragged piece of fabric over Donnie’s shoulders, and wrapped his arms around his brother’s shoulders. He rested his head on top of Donnie’s, humming an old lullaby Master Splinter used to sing them. “It’s gonna be alright,” he heard himself say. “It’s gonna be alright.”

***

“The sewers!” Donnie shouted, dropping his spoon. Mikey started and nearly knocked over his bowl.

“What?” Mikey asked, confused. He grabbed a rag and wiped up some of the spilled (slightly burnt) soup.

“The sewers,” Donnie repeated. His heart raced. How had he not thought of this earlier? He was such an idiot. His oversight had caught them hours. Precious time. The twenty four hour period following a person’s disappearance - when the highest chance of a rescue was - and Donnie had  _ wasted _ them because he had been  _ panicking _ and hadn’t thought and Master Splinter could be dead and Leo was probably still alright because it had only been six hours but six hours was  _ too much time _ and they’d waste time looking for them and without Leo it would take longer and if Donnie had just -

“Don!” Mikey yelled, grabbing his arms and shaking him. “The sewers?”

Focus. Donnie reached out for the unravelling threads of his mind and forcibly yanked them back. “Nothing on the cameras,” Donnie said. “Not on a single CCTV or traffic camera or phone camera, because you can’t see them. Because they’re  _ underground. _ ”

Mikey blinked once. Then twice. Donnie could see the comprehension dawn on him. “Oh.”

At that very moment, Raph burst back into the Lair. “I found a blood trail!” he cried. “By that tunnel we used to skateboard in - I dunno if it’s them but it might be -”

“I need to take a blood sample,” Donnie immediately said. “It’ll only take me half an hour or so - I just need to run a quick test, see if it’s mutated blood -”

“We don’t have half a fucking hour!” Raph snapped. “We ain’t got two damn minutes - Master Splinter and Leo could be dead -”

“We don’t know that,” Donnie argued. “We can’t charge in blind, Raph, what if it’s just some random man -”

“This close to the Lair we’d have noticed -”

“We didn’t notice Leo and Splinter disappearing -”

“Enough!” Mikey shouted. “Raph, eat your soup. Donnie, take the sample.”

They blinked at him, surprised. “...okay,” Donnie said. He jogged into his lab and re-emerged with a little kit before going out the door.

Raph stood there, stunned still.

“Your soup is getting cold,” Mikey told him.

***

“It’s Splinter,” Donnie said half an hour later, on the dot.

“You sure?” Mikey asked.

“Yeah. Fifty percent  _ Rattus norvegicus _ , fifty percent human.”

“Then what are we waiting for?” Raph exclaimed, leaping to his feet.

“Wait,” Donnie said, “we need a plan.”

“Fuck plans! Leo tried to plan, and look where that got him!”

“Raph, we can’t just  _ charge in  _ -”

Mikey took the opportunity to slip away into Leo’s room. He didn’t understand how Leo did it - listening to his brothers bicker and trying to find a middle ground was absolutely exhausting. Quietly, Mikey vowed to do everything he could to make Leo’s life at least somewhat easier in the future.

Leo’s bed was neatly made, as if Leo had woken up and just popped out for a brief walk. Everything was in order. Classic Leo. Mikey sat on the bed, running one scaled hand across the soft cotton of Leo’s checkered blue comforter. He curled his fingers tightly. He felt so  _ useless _ . What was Mikey supposed to do, without Leo? Donnie still had his brains and Raph his fists but Mikey needed Leo to tell him what to do to be of any use, and Mikey hated it.

In the background, Mikey could still hear Donnie and Raph’s shouting. Abruptly, Mikey stood. It was just  _ too much _ . He strode to the door and closed it gently, muffling his brothers’ argument. As Mikey pulled his hand away from the handle, he brushed against Leo’s coat, and something fell out of a pocket. Frowning, Mikey reached down to pick it up.

It was a note, the words made up of cutout letters from newspapers and magazines. It said,  _ WE HAVE THE RAT. COME ALONE. _

For a moment, Mikey was sure his heart stopped beating.

Then he screamed for his brothers.

***

They tore apart Leo’s room.

Raph would’ve felt bad if  _ Leo hadn’t been such a fucking idiot _ .

Come alone? Really? He had  _ fallen for that shit? _

Donnie worked through Leo’s desk calmly and methodically. Mikey gently inspected every item on Leo’s shelves. Raph snatched Leo’s bedsheets and shook them out violently.

He wasn’t quite sure what exactly he expected to find in Leo’s  _ bed _ of all things, but a stack of papers actually did fall out of Leo’s duvet cover. At this point, Raph wasn’t even surprised.

“Look,” he said shortly. Donnie fell onto his knees in his haste to inspect the papers. His kneepads thudded dully against the concrete floor. Raph and Mikey joined him.

Some of the papers were in Leo’s handwriting, in that distinct combination of English and Japanese he wrote in whenever he went into one of his focused frenzies. Some were newspaper clippings, and some were written in letters cut out from newspapers and magazines again.

“We need more space,” Donnie said. “Let’s take this downstairs.”

The three brothers spread the papers across the dining table. Donnie organised them into three stacks - Leo’s notes, newspaper clippings, and the mystery letters. The notes made up the largest pile, followed by the clippings.

“We should organise Leo’s notes,” Mikey suggested.

“By date,” Donnie agreed. Raph shoved the other two stacks off to the corner and spread out the notes. Each note was dated, thank Leo’s neatness. Raph picked one up and immediately felt sick.

It dated to three months back.

How long had this been going  _ on? _

As they tried to sort the notes into some sort of timeline - some notes were written on the same day, and some had dates days apart on either side of the paper, as if Leo had grabbed the nearest thing to write on - Raph could see a strange form of progression. While they started out in Leo’s neat English cursive, written in paragraphs and prose, they delved into a mess of increasingly illegible English-and-Japanese bullet points. He could almost feel Leo’s fear and anxiety pouring from the words, thick and tangible and  _ choking _ .

How had no one noticed?

_ 8th July _ , the first one was dated. In Leo’s looped, small handwriting:  _ I was watching the news with Mikey. The news anchor said something about a homeless man gone missing. I don’t think it’s worth investigating. This kind of stuff happens all the time. I doubt it’s anything significant. If anything, it’s probably just a man slipping through the cracks of society and ending up dead of starvation or something. It’s horrible, but it happens. _ From there, it delved into a brief review of a book Usagi had somehow managed to send Leo through the Battle Nexus. The page looked like it had been ripped out of a journal.

The second one was written three days later.  _ Raph and I were topside. I found a copy of The Washington Post someone left behind. There was a short section on a corpse they found torn apart to the point of unrecognizability by the pier - the one the tunnels from that one junction there was an alligator in once led to. Is it related to the disappearing man from a few days back? _

_ A thief on parole went missing. _

_ A stripper from The Delirium disappeared. _

_ A body was found in an alleyway. A young woman, of Latina descent, they think. _

_ A dancer from Hoes and Bros (that’s a horrible name!). _

_ An escort. Illegal immigrant from Asia, apparently. They couldn’t even be bothered to write what country. _

And on the fifth of September, hiragana leaking into the Latin alphabet:  _ This isn’t right. There are too many disappearances for this to be a coincidence. What’s going on? _ For the first time, Raph cursed the fact that he hadn’t focused on his Japanese lessons with the same intensity as Leo. Even Donnie, the genius, had to whip out his shell cell and put some of the writing through a translator.

_ Went to Hoes and Bros (I can’t write that name without cringing). I found the dancer’s locker - her name was Gladys. There was a crown sticker on the inside. The others are scared. Another dancer went missing last week. _

_ I was looking for some spare leather in the junkyard with Donnie. We didn’t find any, but I found a body. I didn’t show it to Donnie - I didn’t want to freak him out, but there was a fake gold coin with a crown pressed into it inside the left ventricle. _

It went on and on and on. Observations, connections, similarities.  _ Gold coin. Homeless. Prostitute. Illegal immigrant. Of colour. Ex-criminal. Gold coin. Torn apart. Barely recognisable. _

Raph couldn’t bring himself to keep reading. Instead, slowly, methodically, he sorted the newspaper clippings, letting Donnie take over the note sorting. Unsurprisingly, the clippings lined up with Leo’s notes. Grimly, Mikey picked up the mystery letters and started arranging them backwards, starting from the first note they found at the very end of the table.

Leo had written the dates and a sentence or two in a frazzled script on the back of each letter. Raph started to read the notes, and immediately felt nauseous.

_ WE KNOW WHAT YOU’RE DOING. STOP IT. _ the first one said. The paper was blood-splattered. Leo had written,  _ 28th September. Was looking for the man from 26th September - disappeared near here. Found this on the body. _

There were half a dozen of the letters, following a similar pattern.  _ WE KNOW WHO YOU ARE. 30th September. Was following a trail of blood. FUCK OFF, FREAK. 2nd October. An alcove - someone used to live here. Blood everywhere. THEY DESERVED IT. 4th October. Abandoned subway station. Getting warmer. WE’LL KILL YOU AND YOUR FAMILY. 6th October. Tunnel with train tracks. Bloodstained. The others can’t know. _

The last note -  _ WE HAVE THE RAT. COME ALONE. _ It had nothing else written on it.

Raph found Leo’s notes from yesterday.  _ 9th October. Shit. I think they have Sensei. On the 7th - found their base. So many dead. How many slipped through? Fuck the cops - they did fuck all. Saw shadows. Ran. Must’ve followed me back. Later that night, heard something fall downstairs. Thought Mikey was getting a snack. Must’ve been Sensei. Shit! Can’t go in guns blazing. Can’t tell the guys - they’ll get them too. Need a plan. Go alone. _

“He didn’t say where they were,” Donnie said frantically. Distantly, Raph noticed his hands shaking.

“We need -” Mikey’s voice stuck in his throat. “The - the blood trail. We need to follow it.”

Nobody argued.

***

“Your life for the rat’s,” they had snarled at him. “Quietly. Don’t make a fuss.”

Later, Leo cursed his panic. He should’ve known there was no way they’d let Sensei go. It made him regret not leaving a trail.

(He didn’t realise Sensei had left one for him.)

***

Compared to deciphering Leo’s investigation, following the blood trail was easy.

Killing the men was easier.

***

At their base, they trussed him up and tied him to Splinter. His master was unconscious, bleeding sluggishly from a wound to his forehead.

“Let’s see how fast the freak heals,” one of the men taunted. They slid a knife under a scale on his arm and pried it free. Leo screamed and did his best to pull into his shell, something he hadn’t done since he was a child.

“The freak’s more turtle than human!” someone else cried in delight.

“Ya know, I heard they got nerves or some shit in their shells,” a third voice drawled.

“Let’s give it a go, shall we, boys?”

They dug the knife two of his marginal scutes and cut one free. The pain burned through Leo like wildfire. As they clamped down onto the scute and wrenched it free with a pair of pliers, the scream tearing through his throat dried out. Instead, Leo felt his mind closing in, retreating into a box. Was this what their victims had gone through, Leo wondered. Would they throw his body topside? It would be a pretty shit way for the world to find out about him and his brothers. Some part of him registered Splinter squirming against his carapace. Oh. Had his screaming woken him?

The men dug their knives between his scutes and his scales, cutting through flesh and bleeding him. “The blood’s warm!” one man chirped gleefully. “Ain’t they meant to be cold blooded?”

“Should dunk him in an ice bath! See if his blood runs colder then!”

“Nah, don’t they hibernate? I want him awake.”

A hand grasped Leo’s beak, and forced him to look up. “Oi, freak!” Reluctantly, Leo opened tear-stained eyes. Someone laughed.

“Oh, we’ll have fun with this one, we will!”

Leo heard the man in front of him talking. His voice was distant and muffled, as if Leo’s head was dunked underwater. “...nearly ruined us. Gonna pay, freak. Just cleaning out the scum of society, we are.”

“A society fit for kings!” a nasty, seedy voice added. Uproarious laughter.

“For the King! The King! The King!”

Someone dragged a knife into the soft, sensitive flesh inside his shell where his arm connected to his torso.

Leo blacked out.

***

“...yeah, freak? Hey, wake up, see what we’re gonna do to this rat -”

The man was cut off by a wet thunk.

Leo’s mind slipped away.

***

“Shit, shit, Don! Don, what’d they do to him?”

“I don’t know -”

“Master Splinter! Are you alright?”

“I am fine, my sons, but Leonardo -”

“Leo, stay awake! Fuck. Leo. You’re gonna be alright -”

***

“...lost so much blood -”

“What did those fuckers do?”

“- needs more.”

“Bro, it’s me, it’s Raphael, please stay awake, I’m begging you -”

“- get Mikey, I need a pint from each of you -”

“- Casey and April are on the way -”

“Leo! Oh my god, what happened to him?”

“Dude! Fuck, can he take our blood too?”

***

Leo woke up covered in bandages with a needle up his arm. It was hooked up to a couple of bags, one clear and one red. His mind was still fuzzy and far away.

“You’re awake,” came Donnie’s voice. “Shh, Leo, it’s alright. You’re safe now.”

***

The next time Leo woke up, Raph was by his bedside, talking at him. “- safe for now, those fuckers all dead -”

It was all Leo needed to hear. He smiled and fell back unconscious.

***

“- you nearly died, Leo, I was so scared. Don’t do that again.” Mikey’s fingers, gentle on his uninjured (less injured? It was still bandaged) arm.

***

Leo slipped slowly and gradually into the land of the living. This time, the room was silent except for the steady beeping of a machine. He still wasn’t sure how Donnie had found the thing.

“My son,” Splinter said softly.

“Father,” Leo rasped, then promptly broke into a coughing fit. It hurt. Something like half his bones felt broken, and the unbroken parts of his body were covered in cuts and slices of varying depth anyway. Leo could barely remember them being put there.

“Drink.” Splinter helped Leo sit up, then brought a glass of water to his lips. Leo drank slowly, too weak to go any faster. When the glass was empty, Leo slumped against the pillows on the headboard, then winced. It seemed even his shell was banged up. Gently, Splinter helped Leo lie back down. He recognised the room around him as the little infirmary room in Donnie’s lab, with the specially made bed that had a dip in the middle to accomodate for their shells.

“I’m - sorry,” Leo managed, forcing the words past his raw throat. “They found you. I - I failed.”

Splinter moved a hand soothingly over Leo’s forehead. Leo couldn’t help but relax into the touch. “You did nothing of the sort,” Splinter said. “You did your best my son. Although I must ask that the next time you go after serial killers…”

“I ask for help?” Leo asked drily. Splinter nodded. “I’m -”

“There is,” Splinter cut in firmly, “no reason for you to apologise. You did what you felt right, even if you paid dearly for it. I am uninjured, my son, asides from a mild concussion, but that’s no worse than what you and your brothers give each other in training.”

Leo wanted to protest, but sleep took over.

***

It took him a week to get back on his feet, and another week before Splinter let him out of the Lair.

***

“Who were they?” Donnie asked him a month later as Leo washed the dishes. It had been their turn for the night patrol, and Mikey had kindly left them a bowl of noodles each.

Leo’s mind blanked, and he blinked, confused. “...the thieves?”

Donnie rolled his eyes and put away the cleaning rag, having wiped down the table. “No. While you were - under. You kept saying something about a king.”

“Oh.” Leo frowned. He turned off the tap and turned around, giving Donnie a thoughtful look. “You know, I still don’t know. Sadists. Murderers. They claimed to be clearing the scum of society or something - I didn’t hear properly.”

Donnie scoffed. “People like that are the scum of society.”

“It’s horrible,” Leo agreed. “I mean, Don. The humans topside - how did they not notice? They’ve got an entire police force. Why was I the only one to realise?”

“I think you know the answer to that.”

Leo fiddled with his wrist wraps. “...yeah.”

“That’s why we’re here, though, isn’t it?”

“Huh?” Leo tilted his head. Donnie met his gaze with unwavering steadiness.

“To catch the people who slip through the system. The ones no one else cares about.”

“We shouldn’t have to,” Leo said bitterly. Donnie sighed.

“Yeah. But we do. The world’s a better place for it.  _ Even _ ,” he added hurriedly, “if  _ some turtles _ should really ask for help before sweeping around acting the hero.”

Leo shrugged sheepishly. “I was scared they’d get to you too. Like you said - we’re the ones who catch the people who slip through. No one’s there to catch us when we fall. It was better I be the only one to take the brunt of it - then at least the world would have you three.”

“No.” Donnie shook his head. “We’re here, Leo. We catch each other.”

**Author's Note:**

> just about managed to proofread this so please let me know if you catch any glaring mistakes!
> 
> leo is stabbed/sliced by his captors and has a scale and scute removed. the baddies are a gang targeting vulnerable people and minorities such as people of colour and sex workers. leo briefly writes about the police ignoring this people, and then he and donnie discuss it at the end. this wasn't supposed to get political but it did


End file.
